By Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tennyson's Ladies, The Lady of Shalott and Other Poems :

The Lady of Shalott was one of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s earliest poems, published in his second volume of poetry in 1833, although substantially revised later in his career. It tells the story of a lady cursed with only being able to view the world through a mirror, should she take a more direct look it would mean her death. She is undone by the passing of her tower of Sir Lancelot, whose beauty is such that she cannot help herself and has to turn to look at him directly. The poem ends with the doomed lady floating herself off down the river to die.

Tennyson was surprisingly forthright for his age on the role of women and the need for a revising of the “parasitic forms” of life which they had been formed to live. In this collection of some of his best loved poems describing either a great love for a woman or a glimpse of her life, Tennyson reveals an astonishing understanding and a delightful vision of this series of fascinating women.